I hate how everything slows around Christmas; No new episodes for my tv shows, no new manga, no new nothing. Nothing for those of us who will need an escape on these days. Some of us who have Monday the 25th, Tuesday the 26th, and Sunday the 31st. We’re here trying not to think of all the reasons why to us they’re just more days of the week while we have no content for distraction and a steady stream of people boasting about their parties and celebrations who are getting along with their whole(some) family.

I miss the days I didn’t know the feeling of a blade dragging across my skin or the pain of knuckles against the wall. I don’t even remember times where I looked at medicine as a remedy, fast traffic as an annoyance and heights as an adventure. Why did I come to understand why people stay with their abusers? What did I do to deserve knowing what it’s like to cry until there are no tears left and being unable to sleep until you’re glad to black out for a couple hours away from an endless nightmare? Never should I have been able to trace nearly every bone in my body through gray skin to match dead eyes. Shouldn’t therapy have helped and family and friends have been there?

Still, I’m always there for everyone. I tell them that I’ll understand since there’s hardly anything I haven’t been through except one thing. Isn’t it sad that the only thing I can’t relate to, is happiness?

Dimly lit by light of her screen, hair tucked behind her ears and wrapped tightly in her blanket. Her pale face without a trace of the enthusiasm she shows her world. Headphones in, but no music plays. There’s nothing but silence surrounding her. Gritting her teeth and occasionally biting her lip she tries to make sense of her thoughts and feelings.

The dark circles under her red swollen eyes betray more than she wants to tell. With her mask off and no one around she breaks. Everything that had been building up that day, no even from before, comes flooding out. She wants to scream out for help or… say what she knows to be true. She fiddles with her accessories and occasionally touches her wrists.

She’s cold, lonely, numb. I shouldn’t bother others with my feelings, she says to herself. She feels worthless, a failure. It will get better she repeats over and over, but she can’t convince herself. She closes her eyes and sighs, the temporary relief gives way to crack of smile. It’s quickly put down by memories that make her cringe.

“Ugh, I’m so stupid.”, “I shouldn’t have done that.”, “What will they think of me.”, “No wonder I’m alone.”, these are the things that shout trough her mind whenever she recalls her “regrets”. All she really wants is to relive them, they’re happy memories after all. She longs for them so much it hurts.

She shifts around and lies down staring at her phone, lost for what to do. She has to write off her feelings, but not in a way where people will know what’s going on. That would be a disaster. Going past all her social medias she finds none that fits and instead almost automatically checks her apps. Sifting trough her subscriptions only watching for a minute before clicking the next video. She’s looking for something to entertain her, to grab her, though she doesn’t know what.

It’s not like she has nothing to do, in fact there are plenty unfinished tasks that reach their deadline soon. Meanwhile she tries to escape herself and the world around her. Reading, writing, watching something, anything to keep from overthinking. Toxic to herself this has become her routine. Numbly repeating the same useless activities, clasping desperately to her sanity by walking on the edge of reality. While others compliment her strength she colapses all alone.